In One Person

We are formed by what we desire

Don't forget this, too: Rumors aren't interested in the unsensational story; rumors don't care what's true.

And when you love a book, commit one glorious sentence of it-perhaps your favorite sentence-to memory. That way you won't forget the language of the story that moved you to tears.

Gender mattered a whole lot less to Shakespeare than it seems to matter to us.

My dear boy, " Miss Frost said sharply. "My dear boy, please don't put a label on me - don't make a category before you get to know me!

He was one of those people things came easily to, but he did little to demonstrate that he deserved to be gifted.

All I say is: Let us leave les folles alone; let's just leave them be. Don't judge them. You are not superior to them - don't put them down.

Most places we leave in childhood grow less, not more, fancy.

You can learn a lot from your lovers, but-for the most part-you get to keep your friends longer, and you learn more from them.

Novels are just another kind of cross-dressing, aren't they?

The time to read Madame Bovary is when your romantic hopes and desires have crashed, and you will believe that your future relationships will have disappointing - even devastating - consequences.

It happens to many teenagers-that moment when you feel full of resentment or distrust for those adults you once loved unquestioningly.

You live your life at the time you live it -- you don't have much of an overview when what's happening to you is still happening.

It doesn't really matter who said it - it's so obviously true. Bevore you can write anything, you have to notice something.

It is exhausting to be seventeen and not know who you are.

...where our desires "come from"; that is a dark, winding road.

...friends were more important than lovers - not least for the fact that friendships generally lasted longer than relationships.

...there's a limit to enduring admiration being a substitute for love.

I'll bet every fucking one of your angels is going to be terrifying!

That's okay," I said. "We're writers. We make things up.

By '95 - in New York, alone - more Americans had died of AIDS than were killed in Vietnam.

Nostalgia!" Miss Frost cried. "You´re nostalgic!" She repeated. "Just how old are you, William?" She asked. "Seventeen, " I told her. "Seventeen!" Miss Frost cried, as if she'd been stabbed. "Well, William Abbott, if you're nostalgic at seventeen, maybe you are going to be a writer!

I'm just a woman with a penis!" she would say, her voice rising.

Of course, everyone is intolerant of something or someone.

people can’t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about the penis word.

Bill is a fiction writer, but he writes in the first-person voice in a style that is tell-all confessional; in fact, his fiction sounds as much like a memoir as he can make it sound.

Why do you guys want to take all the mystery away? Isn't the mystery an exciting part of sex?

You should wait, William," Miss Frost said. "The time to read Madame Bovary is when your romantic hopes and desires have crashed, and you believe that your future relationships will have disappointing - even devastating - consequences.